Foreclosure activity in Georgia decreased in January to 11,274 properties with foreclosure filings, a 13 percent decline from December 2009, but still up 14 percent from January 2009, according to the latest RealtyTrac® U.S. Foreclosure Market Report. With one in every 357 Georgia housing units receiving a foreclosure filing in January, the state’s foreclosure rate ranked 10th in the nation for the month.

“Georgia’s foreclosure woes improved significantly in January, but not enough to erase the deficient on a yearly basis,” said James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac. “The largest monthly decline was seen in auction notices, which were down 22 percent for the month. On a yearly basis, however, the number of bank-owned properties was up 66 percent over January 2009.”

California continues to lead the nation with 71,817 properties with foreclosure filings for the month. Florida maintained its second place national ranking, documenting 47,069 properties with foreclosure filings for the month. Arizona came in third highest, reporting 21,048 properties with foreclosure filings for the month. Illinois ranked fourth highest at 18,120 properties with foreclosure filings. Reporting 17,574 properties with foreclosure filings, Michigan had the fifth highest level of foreclosure activity during the month.

The rest of the nation’s top 10 states for total foreclosure activity in January were Texas (12,225), Nevada (11,854), Ohio (11,105) and New Jersey (6,146). Activity in the top five states accounted for 56 percent of all foreclosure filings in the nation for January.

Walton County posts top foreclosure rate in the state for January

With one in every 162 housing units receiving a foreclosure filing — 2.5 times the national average and 2.2 times the state average — Walton County posted the state’s highest county foreclosure rate in January. HenryCounty had the second highest rate, with one in every 169 housing units receiving a foreclosure filing — 2.4 times the national average and 2.1 times the state average. Newton was third, with one in every 182 housing units receiving a foreclosure filing — 2.2 times the national average and twice the state average.

Fulton County led the state in total foreclosure filings for January

Fulton County led all counties, totaling 1,543 properties with foreclosure filings for the month. Gwinnett County was second highest, documenting 1,196 properties with foreclosure filings. Reporting 1,104 properties with foreclosure filings for the month, Dekalb County had the third highest total. Cobb County came in fourth highest, reporting 760 properties with foreclosure filings, followed by Clayton County where 538 properties with foreclosure filings were reported.

State a significant contributor to nation’s foreclosure total in January

Georgia accounted for 4 percent of the 315,716 properties with foreclosure filings reported nationwide in January. Total U.S. activity declined nearly 10 percent from the previous month but was still 15 percent ahead of January 2009. One in every 409 U.S. housing units received a foreclosure filing during the month.

Report methodology

The RealtyTrac U.S. Foreclosure Market Report provides a count of the total number of properties with at least one foreclosure filing entered into the RealtyTrac database during the month — broken out by type of filing by state, county and metropolitan statistical area. Some foreclosure filings entered into the database during the month may have been recorded in previous months. Data is collected from more than 2,200 counties nationwide, and those counties account for more than 90 percent of the U.S. population. RealtyTrac’s report incorporates documents filed in all three phases of foreclosure: Default—Notice of Default (NOD) and Lis Pendens (LIS); Auction— Notice of Trustee Sale and Notice of Foreclosure Sale (NTS and NFS); and Real Estate Owned, or REO properties (that have been foreclosed on and repurchased by a bank). If more than one foreclosure document is received for a property during the month, only the most recent filing is counted in the report. The report also checks if the same type of document was filed against a property in a previous month. If so, and if that previous filing occurred within the estimated foreclosure timeframe for the state the property is in, the report does not count the property in the current month.

For current news and information regarding foreclosure-related issues and trends, check out our blog at www.ForeclosurePulse.com.

About RealtyTrac

RealtyTrac® is the leading provider of comprehensive housing data and analytics for the real estate and financial services industries, Federal, state and local governments, academic institutions, and the media. Data is aggregated from parcel-level records of more than 125 million U.S. residential and commercial properties and delivered through customizable products including bulk file licensing, APIs and custom reports.